Sometimes observations can be deceiving, and also one can become set in one's ways and see what they want to see.

Case: I was pretty harsh on Salty last winter. I did not like the way he handled the staff, or how he blocked the plate or threw out runners. The poor start the Sox staff had last April only furthered my frustration with Salty.

harness pointed out in mid-May that Salty appeared to be doing much better with the staff and behind the plate. I hadn't noticed and might not have all year had he not asked me to watch more closely. I did, and I saw a big change from 2011 and early April of 2012.

Then, I went back and looked at the numbers pre-April 23, 2012 and after. The numbers backed up the claim by harness and my new observational perspective. Salty's CERA declined a lot and his PBs and WPs as well (even if you take out the Wake games).

It would have been easy for me to get lazy and look at just the 2012 numbers and conclude that Salty was not getting better, but in fact he was (post 4/23/12).

I, on the other hand, am still very skeptical about Salty.

Moon, have you checked Salty's CERA for August-September of last year? I suspect it was pretty bad again in those months, and that the good stretch was May, June, and July.

I ahve the breakdown somewhere, and I do recall he dipped a bit late in the season, but not much.

His biggest gains were in less PBs and WPs per game than 2011 games without Wake. He nearly cut the rate in half.

I am still skeptical about salty as well. One issue I wanted some evidence last year on was his durability and stamina, however, when they brought up Lava and played him so much, they kind of ruined that experiment.

I did a study on Salty on offense after a day off, and his numbers were better, but not greatly so.

On the SB%, it's hard to know how much of his poor rate had to do with poor team philosophy about holding runners along with pitchers that were poor at holding runners even when they tried. Salty's footwork is not very good when setting to throw, but that may be something he can still improve.

On CERA, Lester's velocity was down, so I can't blame that on Salty. Injuries and second rate starters didn't help either. The pen was taxed. Salty was the catcher in a few massive blowouts that really hit his CERA numbers. It will be interesting to see how this year goes.

With his great speed, I naturally assumed he was an above average fielder when he first played for the Sox (2007-2009 or 2010). There were big arguments about jacoby's offense and defense, and I was surprised that several posters led by softy were bashing jacoby for his defense, namely his late breaks on balls, taking poor angles, and positioning deep in CF, even against weak hitters. So, I began to watch closer in 2009.

I realized I had been wrong. Ellsbury did have many late breaks, poor angles, and seemingly played too deep. After realizing this-- not before-- I looked at his UZR and RngR numbers for 2009:

2009:

UZR/150 -10.0

RngR factor -6.5

2007 to 2009:

UZR/150: -0.8

RngR factor: +2.6

2007-2010:

UZR/150: 0.0

RngR factor: +5.1

Jacoby has clearly improved since 2009, when healthy, but this example showed me how it is hard to see somethings unless you are specifically looking for them.

softy also mentioned, among hundreds of other Jacoby faults, that Jacoby ran into many outs on the bases (beyond CS'ings). I watched that closer as well, and it did seem like he did run into more than his fair share of outs taking the extra base.

It's hard to pay attention to everything going on out there, especially fi you watch many of the games on TV, but there are still many things you can pick up on -- if you look closely for them.

While one of the new school stats, UZR, is not favorable to Jeter, one of the others, WAR, or Wins Above Replacement, certainly is. WAR factors in several components of a player's performance including UZR. Jeter's career WAR per Baseball-Reference is 69.3 in 17 seasons, or an average of about 4 WAR per season. FanGraphs has him even higher at 77.6.

So Jeter's offensive productivity and durability have much more than made up for his defensive deficiencies. Even with his fielding range issues, WAR rates him as one of the top shortstops in history.

I'm not sure reliable is a term that can be applied to baseball stats. Personally I think the more you look at WAR the more credible it is. For example, here is Baseball-Reference's list of career WAR leaders.

I'm not sure reliable is a term that can be applied to baseball stats. Personally I think the more you look at WAR the more credible it is. For example, here is Baseball-Reference's list of career WAR leaders.

Fairly convincing, but still flawed, and I'm guessing it overlooks intangibles & clutch play. For example: Mike Mussina (Rank 58) has a higher WAR than Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Charlie Gehringer, Nolan Ryan, Joe DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson, Johnny's Bench & Mize. Carl Hubbell is at 104. Al Simmons is at 112. Duke Snider is at 118, right above Willie Randolph. Bob Feller is at 164 & Yogi Berra at 179. Whitey Ford is at 198; think about that for a second; Ford, who has the highest WPct in history for those with over 100 decisions, is 140 slots behind Mussina. Bill Dickey & Ducky Medwick is at 217, Bill Terry at 221, Gabby Hartnett at 236. One of the greatest catchers in history is at 236; I'm guessing WAR doesn't take into account the extremely important & grueling job catchers have. I didn't look past 250. I understand why Koufax wouldn't be there, but all these guys mentioned played a long time.

While one of the new school stats, UZR, is not favorable to Jeter, one of the others, WAR, or Wins Above Replacement, certainly is. WAR factors in several components of a player's performance including UZR. Jeter's career WAR per Baseball-Reference is 69.3 in 17 seasons, or an average of about 4 WAR per season. FanGraphs has him even higher at 77.6.

So Jeter's offensive productivity and durability have much more than made up for his defensive deficiencies. Even with his fielding range issues, WAR rates him as one of the top shortstops in history.

I have never said Jeter was bad overall. I was talking only about fielding. I even mentioned his offense and leadership makes up for the poor defense.

Here's a breakdown of the top SSs of the past decade by O and D...

There are 25 SSs with over 3500 PAs in the decade.

Fangraphs breaks down their WAR into different components:

Batting (only 10 of 25 are plus- showing the comparative value of an offensive SS over his peers):

Fairly convincing, but still flawed, and I'm guessing it overlooks intangibles & clutch play. For example: Mike Mussina (Rank 58) has a higher WAR than Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Charlie Gehringer, Nolan Ryan, Joe DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson, Johnny's Bench & Mize. Carl Hubbell is at 104. Al Simmons is at 112. Duke Snider is at 118, right above Willie Randolph. Bob Feller is at 164 & Yogi Berra at 179. Whitey Ford is at 198; think about that for a second; Ford, who has the highest WPct in history for those with over 100 decisions, is 140 slots behind Mussina. Bill Dickey & Ducky Medwick is at 217, Bill Terry at 221, Gabby Hartnett at 236. One of the greatest catchers in history is at 236; I'm guessing WAR doesn't take into account the extremely important & grueling job catchers have. I didn't look past 250. I understand why Koufax wouldn't be there, but all these guys mentioned played a long time.

WAR seems to have always under valued catchers. Part of the reason is catchers play less, but it still seems to under value them beyond that. I always add a touch more WAR for catchers when using WAR. So I agree there.

Also agree that Willie Randolph was over valued.

As for the other complaints, not sure I agree as much. Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Charlie Gehringer, Nolan Ryan, Joe DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson, Mize, Al Simmons are all about where they probably should be. Ford and Feller missed their prime 2-4 years because of the two wars, causing them to lose a ton of WAR. Snyder was injured after the age of 30, hurting his career WAR totals. Hubbell didn't start playing until he was 25.

As for Mike Mussina, I thought he was an outstanding and under rated pitcher for his career. He had a record of 270-153. Hard to beat that in the 5 man rotation era. It was a long, consistent, and great career. He was 20-9 with a 3.37 ERA at the age of 39. You might complaign about cumalitive career numbers rewarding longevity and over rating a player[SEE PETE ROSE], but it seems WAR ranked Mussina very fairly and accurately from a seasonal stand point. Its just that all those 5 WAR seasons added up over a consistent and long career. As for clutch, Mussina was an excellent playoff pitcher.

I'm not sure reliable is a term that can be applied to baseball stats. Personally I think the more you look at WAR the more credible it is. For example, here is Baseball-Reference's list of career WAR leaders.

Fairly convincing, but still flawed, and I'm guessing it overlooks intangibles & clutch play. For example: Mike Mussina (Rank 58) has a higher WAR than Pete Rose, Rod Carew, Charlie Gehringer, Nolan Ryan, Joe DiMaggio, Reggie Jackson, Johnny's Bench & Mize. Carl Hubbell is at 104. Al Simmons is at 112. Duke Snider is at 118, right above Willie Randolph. Bob Feller is at 164 & Yogi Berra at 179. Whitey Ford is at 198; think about that for a second; Ford, who has the highest WPct in history for those with over 100 decisions, is 140 slots behind Mussina. Bill Dickey & Ducky Medwick is at 217, Bill Terry at 221, Gabby Hartnett at 236. One of the greatest catchers in history is at 236; I'm guessing WAR doesn't take into account the extremely important & grueling job catchers have. I didn't look past 250. I understand why Koufax wouldn't be there, but all these guys mentioned played a long time.

They should list players by WAR per 162 games played as another way of looking at the greats.

Why is it that everytime on this board that when defensive metrics are brought up on this board every RS fan wants to bring up Derek Jeter. Look I'm a huge RS fans who lives in Ffl County, CT and has watched Jeter and Yanks play probably as much as any RS fan on this board. For yrs was not able to get Baseball pkg thru cable provider [Yanks or Mets were the options]. This idea that Jeter is the worst fielding SS is absolute nonsense. Jeter makes every routine play and sometimes the occasional outstanding play, where I've seen some of the supposed great defensive SS who botch the routine play. Jeter has always been a big SS in terms of Ht so he's probably not going to have the lateral movement of a smaller SS, but no one here is complaining that Cal Ripken wasn't a great fielding SS and that is who Jeter most reminds me of defensively. Seems to me that a lot of RS fans have a SS envy thing going on. I've watched Jeter play almost his entire career and will tell you this I don't care what the defensive metrics say he might not be the best fielding SS in the league but he is definately not the worst. RS fans could have only wished that Jeter played for us his entire career and not the hated Yanks.

Why is it that everytime on this board that when defensive metrics are brought up on this board every RS fan wants to bring up Derek Jeter. Look I'm a huge RS fans who lives in Ffl County, CT and has watched Jeter and Yanks play probably as much as any RS fan on this board. For yrs was not able to get Baseball pkg thru cable provider [Yanks or Mets were the options]. This idea that Jeter is the worst fielding SS is absolute nonsense. Jeter makes every routine play and sometimes the occasional outstanding play, where I've seen some of the supposed great defensive SS who botch the routine play. Jeter has always been a big SS in terms of Ht so he's probably not going to have the lateral movement of a smaller SS, but no one here is complaining that Cal Ripken wasn't a great fielding SS and that is who Jeter most reminds me of defensively. Seems to me that a lot of RS fans have a SS envy thing going on. I've watched Jeter play almost his entire career and will tell you this I don't care what the defensive metrics say he might not be the best fielding SS in the league but he is definately not the worst. RS fans could have only wished that Jeter played for us his entire career and not the hated Yanks.

It has nothing to do with me being a Sox fan, and by the way, years ago I was criticizing Ripken's D as well, as well as his streak quest hurting the team.

Making almost of all of the "routine plays" is a good thing, but it essentially amounts to maybe making 5-10 more plays in that category thatn the average MLb SS. While important, it does not come close to the amount of plays he misses due to his limited range as compared to the league average and league best.

I think that some Jeter fielding supporters may have formulated their positions based on his early career work- where he was better than he is now. This position has been fortified over the years by sports highlight shows skewing towards the NY market and showing more of his highlights than small market or west coast market players.

His lack of range clearly outweighs the steady routine plays and holding runners with his strong relay arm.

His leadership skills are perhaps second to none.

His offense has been top 2-3 over the past decade and longer.

I'd have loved to have him our team, but maybe at 3B the last few years.

As for "homerism", have you been paying attention to all the bashing of Sox short stops over the past decade? It has been worse than Jeter as a fielder bashing.

When this topic came up and started going towards fielding stats and metrics, Jeter is the natural case to bring up. He is both a recent GG winner, while at the same time being called one of the worst fielding SSs of the decade by several respectable baseball people and posters on this site. It's obvious why his name keeps coming up.

Hypothetical question about UZR. Imagine that there is a season when most of the fielders at a particular position have poor range and don't get to many balls in their zone. How does this impact the calculation for what constitutes an average fielder at that position for that season? And does it make the few superior fielders look better?

Hypothetical question about UZR. Imagine that there is a season when most of the fielders at a particular position have poor range and don't get to many balls in their zone. How does this impact the calculation for what constitutes an average fielder at that position for that season? And does it make the few superior fielders look better?

It's not a comparative stat. Each player is judged on plays in his zone and plays he makes outside his zone.

What a player does on another team has nothing to do with someone else's score.

Hypothetical question about UZR. Imagine that there is a season when most of the fielders at a particular position have poor range and don't get to many balls in their zone. How does this impact the calculation for what constitutes an average fielder at that position for that season? And does it make the few superior fielders look better?

It's not a comparative stat. Each player is judged on plays in his zone and plays he makes outside his zone.

What a player does on another team has nothing to do with someone else's score.

That's not the impression I get from this UZR primer on fangraphs. It is a measure against the average fielder for that position for that season.

"As many of you already know, UZR is an advanced defensive metric that uses play-by-play data recorded by Baseball Info Solutions (BIS) to estimate each fielder’s defensive contribution in theoretical runs above or below an average fielder at his position in that player’s league and year. Thus, a SS with a UZR of zero is exactly average as compared to a SS in the same year and in the same league. If his UZR is plus, he is above average, and if it is minus, he is below average."

Hypothetical question about UZR. Imagine that there is a season when most of the fielders at a particular position have poor range and don't get to many balls in their zone. How does this impact the calculation for what constitutes an average fielder at that position for that season? And does it make the few superior fielders look better?

It's not a comparative stat. Each player is judged on plays in his zone and plays he makes outside his zone.

What a player does on another team has nothing to do with someone else's score.

That's not the impression I get from this UZR primer on fangraphs. It is a measure against the average fielder for that position for that season.

"Thus, a SS with a UZR of zero is exactly average as compared to a SS in the same year and in the same league. If his UZR is plus, he is above average, and if it is minus, he is below average"

It is a comparative stat. A fielder is compared to the "average fielder" at the same position. That is how they come up with the plays that they "should" have made. It is not the same as measuring batting stats. A batting average is calculated solely by the results of the individual player, not as a comparison to other hitters.

"Thus, a SS with a UZR of zero is exactly average as compared to a SS in the same year and in the same league. If his UZR is plus, he is above average, and if it is minus, he is below average"

It is a comparative stat. A fielder is compared to the "average fielder" at the same position. That is how they come up with the plays that they "should" have made. It is not the same as measuring batting stats. A batting average is calculated solely by the results of the individual player, not as a comparison to other hitters.

Right, but if you read it in detail they explain that the determination of 'average fielder' is based on 6 years of data, so it's going to be a composite value that would not vary much from year to year because there is so much data composing the average.

"Thus, a SS with a UZR of zero is exactly average as compared to a SS in the same year and in the same league. If his UZR is plus, he is above average, and if it is minus, he is below average"

It is a comparative stat. A fielder is compared to the "average fielder" at the same position. That is how they come up with the plays that they "should" have made. It is not the same as measuring batting stats. A batting average is calculated solely by the results of the individual player, not as a comparison to other hitters.

Right, but if you read it in detail they explain that the determination of 'average fielder' is based on 6 years of data, so it's going to be a composite value that would not vary much from year to year because there is so much data composing the average.

So Moonslav was wrong?

No, I wasn't really wrong.

It doesn't matter if fielders don't have balls hit in their zone. It's not like RF/9. A fielder is rated only on balls hit in his zone and ones he gets outside his zone.

As for making superior fielders look better because there were many poor ones, I guess technically they may since there will be a big gap between the top ones and the big bunch of poor ones, but the top players' UZR actual specific numbers will hardly be effected at all. I guess the 6 year average may be effected some by the awful season by all but a few positional players, so technically, yes, I was wrong.

Brian Cashman: The thought process incorporates communication and information as the most important aspects. The more accurate information that you can obtain and dissect, the better informed you’ll be to make safe bets, safe investments. My investments are into players. As an industry, we have seen a radical change. “Moneyball” is a term that people repeat too often—the movie and the book—but essentially we have gotten to the point with technology that we can measure everything that takes place on the field. We’ve hired some really smart people to educate us on what statistics are more meaningful than others. This allows you to make safer bets and manage the risk in a much smarter way than I think the old-school regimes used to do.

IU: So you have essentially an analytic process, right?

Cashman: Big time. I’ve been with the team here about 15 years now, and going on my 16thyear, and I have changed over time as a department head. One of the changes I’ve made is to take the Yankees into the 21st century. When you see things in the industry improve and change, you’ve got to keep up with the challenges. We have created a quantitative analysis department and hired a director of quantitative analysis. That department has grown to some 14 people who manage a number of different information streams. Not only do they pool that information, but then it is dissected and produced in a meaningful way about what is truly taking place on the field in present performance and then future predictable performance. That has certainly allowed us to make safer, more informed decisions.

You’ll never be perfect or right all the time, but I think I’m in a much better position to make decisions and be comfortable with those decisions if they are educated-based.